Developers Ever More Encouraging Of Modding

Thanks to The Hollywood Reporter for its column discussing game companies' continuing encouragement of 'modders' for content creation purposes. Valve's Doug Lombardi points out the obvious advantages his company received from modding: "In the typical scenario, even if a game is a mega-hit, within eight to 12 months on the store shelves, it's gone. But, in the case of 'Half-Life,' our revenue stream increased year after year for the first three years of the game's life. I attribute a lot of that to three mods -- 'Day Of Defeat,' 'Team Fortress,' and 'Counter-Strike.'" It's also mentioned that modding is starting even before a game hits the shelves, since Vivendi Universal has "even licensed an outside team that is building a mod, 'Starsiege 2845,' using the [as yet publically unreleased] 'Tribes Vengeance' engine."